50. "We" are the government says nothing about facts.

And if we have "lost" control of it, it's questionable that a government "by, of and for the People" was ever an accurate description on anything but the most superficial level. It was Lincoln's later interpretation, and he had vested interest in putting it the right way. Argument from authority fallacy: just because Lincoln said it, doesn't mean it was true.

Did I vote? I voted. It's irrelevant. Voting means absolutely nothing, it's like a message in a bottle. If you look at our voting and election system, cheating on a massive scale is being practiced. It's highly questionable my vote is counted accurately or at all. Even if I did vote, Congress and all our legislatures are too structurally flawed to properly represent anyone's point of view but the very wealthy. How about the Electoral College and the Presidential primaries? I live in a city, and rural states like Iowa and Kansas can influence the election more than the rest of the population. And it didn't just get to be like this yesterday. It has been like this and getting worse in my lifetime.

I think you make a fundamental error in seeing our country as having gone off track, where the solution would be to go back to the principles we used to stand for. What's happening is our country is it's reaching the end of the track. Actually, US was founded to make men wealthy, and no contingency plan for what would happen if it didn't turn out, and no vision of what the final results would be.

And, no, I didn't have a say in the government the Founders set up with all its structural flaws and misjudgments. And now, I have as much influence over this government as a flea does riding a charging elephant.

My point of view? This country is going to crumble in my lifetime. The only say I will ever have on what happens with this hunk of geography is after that happens, and likely, I'll have none even then.